


True Things

by canary



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Near-Future Fic, can I write a fic where TK does not call Patty a princess at least once, kind of, not if he’s wearing those sunglasses and those shorts and hanging out in a diamond ring pool floatie, signs point to no, they're working on it anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:55:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23032189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canary/pseuds/canary
Summary: Nolan and a heat wave arrive in Ontario on the same day.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 72
Kudos: 565





	True Things

**Author's Note:**

> _Your body told me in a dream it’s never been afraid of anything._ –Richard Siken
> 
> (via bot)
> 
> (much like hockey players I do not read poetry.)
> 
> Many thanks to [callabang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/callabang) for the beta.
> 
> Content notes: recreational alcohol use (y’all know we got some White Claw out on this lake), references to past cheating

Nolan and a heat wave arrive in Ontario on the same day: June 28, three days before Canada Day. It’s a Sunday, because there are only direct flights between Winnipeg and London three times a week, so fuck it, he gets on the plane Sunday morning in Manitoba and gets off it Sunday afternoon in Ontario. It’s not like either of them are on a schedule this time of year, so picking the day was pretty meaningless.

He’s here for TK’s family’s Canada Day party, or at least that’s what they’re telling everybody. Canada Day is on a Wednesday; so he could have flown in Tuesday, the next day there was a flight, and he still would have had plenty of time. Except that he’d been sitting in his parents’ basement in the Peg looking at Google Flights, and TK had been FaceTiming him from the porch of his cabin, shirtless in a backwards-facing snapback drinking a Molson, the picture going all pixelated every few minutes because the service was shit and he doesn’t have wifi because he’s a fucking loser grandpa; and TK had said, “Yeah, or you could come earlier if you wanted,” and Nolan had answered, “Chill, looks like the flights are a little cheaper on Sunday, anyway.”

That had been a lie. They were $75 more expensive, but TK didn’t need to know that. Nolan didn’t want to pump his tires. He was already enough to deal with.

So, here he is, standing outside the London International Airport waiting for TK to show up. It’s hot, really fucking hot after Winnipeg, probably nothing compared to whatever the hell is going on down in Philadelphia.

TK’s late. He’s late to everything he’s not contractually obligated to be on time for. It makes Nolan’s back teeth itch and something go tense in his stomach.

_where the fuck are you loser_, he texts him. He can feel sweat dripping down his back, after the artificial chill of the plane, the A/C blasting inside the airport.

_Driving, shithead_, he gets back.

_then get off your phone_

_I’m at a stoplight chill out bud_

TK’s impossible. Nolan rolls his eyes and sticks his phone in the pocket of his cut-offs. He wishes he had one of those mister-fan things, the little ones that blow air in your face when you push the button. Maybe he’ll go back inside; make TK pay for parking and come find his ass. He could get a beer. That sounds nice—something cold, bubbles fizzing on his tongue.

He stays where he is.

TK shows up fifteen minutes later, which means he made an effort. Nolan doesn’t want to be touched—he’s still twenty-five minutes late, for fuck’s sake—but he kind of is, anyway, at least until he climbs into TK’s dumbass jacked-up truck and hears that he’s playing like, fucking, Luke Bryan. Dan and Shay. Nolan doesn’t even know; doesn’t want to know anything beyond the fact that TK has the shittiest taste in music of anyone he’s ever known.

“Fuck whoever the fuck this is,” he says, throwing his suitcase in the back and climbing into the passenger seat. “And his sad fucking dog, and his busted fucking truck.”

“Missed you too.” TK’s grinning, teeth white against his golden tan. He looks—warm, like a reflection of sunlight and summer days on a lake. He has on the same backwards Flyers hat he’d been wearing when they FaceTimed, and there are sweat marks radiating out from the armpits of his workout shirt. He smells like shit, like day-old gym shorts, like a youth hockey locker room, and Nolan tells him so.

“Fuck you,” TK says, but he’s still smiling. “You can get back on that fucking plane then, eh?” but he’s also leaning across the cupholder, and getting a fistful of the front of Nolan’s shirt, and kissing him. He tastes like Gatorade and there’s a chalky texture on the surface of his tongue, that shitty protein powder he likes so much. Nolan tries to lick it off and TK makes a noise in the back of his throat, tightening his grip on Nolan’s shirt.

Nolan bites him. Hard, on his bottom lip.

“_Ouch_!” TK yelps into his mouth. “God, you’re such a fucking _bitch_.”

Nolan sits back and pulls his seatbelt into place. “Thanks, _sweetheart_.”

TK never stopped smiling, though, his mouth all crooked, eyes wrinkled up as he readjusts his hat so the brim is facing forward. “I’m glad you’re here, _princess_.”

His hand is sweaty when he grabs Nolan’s out of his lap, laces their fingers together on the console between their two seats. It’s too fucking hot out to be holding hands, even after Nolan’s adjusted all of the vents he can reach with his right hand to blow cold air in his face; but somehow they’re still holding hands, and they’re still listening to goddamned radio country, when they’re pulling into the gravel driveway to TK’s cabin forty-five minutes later.

Nolan will make him pay for it later, he figures.

The cabin’s a cabin. It’s not an NHL-player second-contract-money cabin: it’s just a cabin, four rooms; wood paneling from like, 1976; a fly catcher dangling from the ceiling inside the door, a ceiling fan clicking away and barely moving the thick air in the kitchen.

It has a porch, though, wrapping all the way around; and it slopes right down to the dock, weedy grass interrupted by a firepit and a collection of splintery Adirondack chairs. TK’s boat that probably cost as much as the house.

It feels very—TK. Nolan doesn’t know whether that’s a compliment, or an insult, or just a fact. If Travis Konecny is going to live somewhere, there will be deer antlers, a minimum of three fish mounted to the wall, and at least one cheesy sign painted in cursive lettering. This one says, _be thankful_.

Nolan snaps a picture of it to send to the guys, but it won’t go through, because there’s no fucking cell service in Port Stanley and TK is actually enough of a fucking old man phone-hating weirdo that he doesn’t even want to have the internet to play video games.

“What do you even _do_?” he asks TK’s back. He’s digging around in the fridge, emerging with two beers: a can of Bud Light and—Nolan squints.

“Is that from Evil Genius?”

“Peach IPA,” TK says, wagging the tallboy. “Special delivery. But you gotta say please.”

“You didn’t even know I was coming, though.”

“I guessed.” TK smiles, like he’s so proud of himself. “Or like, I hoped.”

Nolan takes the can and cracks it open, without saying _please_ first. Fuck TK, for somehow witching his favorite beer up here. “Thanks,” he says, instead.

They take their beers outside. TK sets his Bud down next to his snapback and pulls off his shirt and races for the end of the dock, throws himself off, comes up spluttering and grinning. The water’s a cold shade of blue, but it’s probably warmer than Falcon Lake back in Manitoba. Nolan follows at a more leisurely pace: he’s got to take his cutoffs off, anyway. He can see TK watching him from the water and he can feel himself blushing, even though it’s not like he’s embarrassed that TK’s going to see him in his boxer-briefs. TK’s seen him naked plenty, even before they started, whatever.

He dives in. It’s cold, especially after the muggy heat of the evening, and he’s gasping for air by the time he comes back up. “_Fuck_.”

“Feels good, right?” TK asks him. He’s treading water, the waterline slipping up and down his golden-brown shoulders. Nolan wants to kiss him and there’s no reason he shouldn’t so he does, holding them in place with one hand on the dock and both of TK’s arms wrapped around his neck. He’s warm, slippery. Tastes like shit beer but at least he smells like the lake now, instead of an hours-ago workout. TK’s mouth is hot on his neck.

“Nobody’s gonna see,” he mumbles into Nolan’s hairline, at the same time he’s shoving a hand down his underwear. “Fuck, Pat, you feel—”

Nolan cuts him off with a kiss. TK likes to talk in bed and Nolan doesn’t mind it, might even admit to liking it; but right now he’d rather suck his tongue into his mouth, get as much of TK inside him as he can, with his fingers digging into the splintery wood of the dock, TK’s hand going faster and faster, a hot frictive slide that’s still just as overwhelming as it was the first time: narrowing his focus down to the skin of TK’s palm, the animal need pooling in his balls, getting tighter and tighter until finally there’s nothing he can do but come, his entire body seizing up and TK swearing against the side of his neck. His hand keeps moving a little too long, a little too hard on Nolan’s oversensitive skin, and he likes that, too, hearing the helpless noise he makes in the back of his throat even as he feels his cheeks light up with a blush, the familiar crawl of—not shame, exactly, not now, but worry, maybe, that he likes it _too_ much, that he needs this _too_ much: TK’s possessive hands all over his body, making him react.

“Get out,” TK says, shoving at his shoulder. “_Fuck_. Get inside.”

“We just got out here,” Nolan says, to be difficult.

“Yeah, and we’re going back inside, _now_.”

“What about my beer.” It’s fine; he’s already hauling himself out of the water, dripping all over the wood of the dock.

“_Fuck_ your beer.” TK’s following, picking up the beers and shoving at his shoulders until he’s moving up towards the back porch, still naked. His feet are bare and sensitive from being in the water, pale against the green grass, and he’s going to track mud inside but it’s not like Travis Konecny is going to care about that, any day of the week but especially this day: pushing him through the back door and then face down on the kitchen counter, pulling condoms and lube out of a drawer—and Nolan really wants to chirp him for that, will absolutely make fun of him for keeping that shit in his kitchen, Jesus Christ, it’s not even a _big_ cabin—but he’s going to do it later because TK’s got slick fingers inside him, doing the bare minimum of prep before Nolan hears himself making that needy little whine again, shoving back until TK’s swearing and fumbling on a condom, pushing inside him with one hand on his hip and one hand on the back of his neck. He’s big and Nolan just came, his skin still cold and damp from the lake, sticky against the battered laminate countertop; it’s too much, overwhelming, fingernails in the skin of his hip, sweat where TK’s hips are fucking up against his ass, dripping down onto his back, tuned in enough that he can feel the sweat rolling down his spine as things heat up. TK’s moving faster, harder, both hands on his hips now to pull him into exactly the right rhythm to get him where he wants to go. Nolan braces his arm against the linoleum backsplash and hangs on until TK sobs out _fuck_ and yanks him back hard, as deep as he can get.

“I want you to fuck me without a condom,” Nolan tells him, when he’s all the way done; or maybe not, from the twitch he can feel inside him, TK’s belly-deep groan against the back of his shoulder.

“_Fuck_, dude. You can’t say shit like that.”

“Why not,” Nolan asks, into the countertop. He thought that was the _point_ of this, of everything they were trying to do: to be able to say—what had TK said, frantic and red-faced and almost crying in Kevin Hayes’ kitchen—_true things_, to not _lie_ about what they wanted, to keep trying to act like none of it _mattered_.

_This is _killing_ me, Patty_, he’d said, or maybe screamed. _I can’t—either we’re doing this or we’re not. I can’t _do_ this anymore._

“You’re going to kill me,” he says, now, in some kind of fucked-up echo: only it’s different. Nolan can hear the smile in his voice, even as he’s slipping out, kissing his shoulder, the top of his spine. “_Fuck_.” He’s tying off the condom, throwing it in the trash can. Nolan levers himself up from the countertop and stretches out his shoulders, his back.

TK’s watching him with a dumb expression on his face from over by the trash can. Nolan stretches a little taller, makes sure his abs are flexed. “See something you like, eh?”

“Sometimes I forget how fucking hot you are,” TK says, shaking his head. “Jesus fuck. Just going through your fucking day, looking like that.”

Nolan smirks at him. “Yeah?”

“Oh, fuck off,” he says. “It’s not fair.”

“You look like—” Nolan pauses. “You look even more like a redneck than you usually do. Tattoo of a duck and some fish, Jesus. And have you seen your fucking face recently? Maybe try shaving. And washing your hair.”

“Babe.” TK shakes his head, picking up the forgotten beers and passing Nolan his IPA. “Shut up. _You_ can’t talk to _me_ about bad tattoos, and I know you like my face. Because you fucking told me so.”

Nolan rolls his eyes. His beer is lukewarm, condensation and lake water getting the _Welcome to Port Stanley, Ontario!_ koozie all damp. “That was one time.”

TK rocks up on his toes to bump a kiss on Nolan’s jawline. “Still counts.”

“Whatever. I was drunk.” He shoves him off. “It’s too fucking hot in here to be touching you,” he says, but actually TK is wrapping an arm around his hips, splaying a possessive hand out over his ass (or as much of his ass as TK can get a hand around, anyway) and leaning his face into his neck. Nolan kisses the side of his head automatically, even though his hair is fucking rank by now, sweat and the rotting-plants smell of the lake, the lingering tang of gasoline from his boat.

“I’m glad you’re here,” TK says, lips moving against his skin, and Nolan closes his eyes and breathes out and says, “I shouldn’t have missed you.” But he did and he thinks it’s okay if TK knows it, probably.

They take turns in the shower—there’s no way both of them are ever fitting into it, which is a crying fucking shame as far as Nolan is concerned—and Nolan’s making pasta for dinner by the time TK ambles back out, wearing Flyers-branded basketball shorts and toweling off his hair. TK kisses the back of his neck, stands on his tiptoes to hook his chin over his shoulder. Nolan’s on his second beer and he’s feeling looser, enough to lean back against the solid line of TK’s body, enjoy the fingers squeezing at his hip. He’d never admit it out loud but he maybe likes how—whatever, _affectionate_ TK is. He thought he’d feel like it was smothering, how TK always wants to be touching him, how TK’s always kissing him or wrapping an arm around his hips or just leaning up against his shoulder: but it had never bothered him before they were, whatever, _dating_—a slap on the ass at the rink, tapping their helmets together—and so he guesses it shouldn’t be as much of a surprise as it is, that he—likes it.

But it’s still kind of a surprise. Nolan’s never been good at being a boyfriend. He never cared enough to try to be, if he’s being totally honest: not to any of the girls blowing up his DMs on the daily, not to any of what TK jokingly-but-also-not calls his harem of boys back in Winnipeg.

This is what trying looks like, he guesses: flying to Ontario two days early, boiling pasta in a dented pot with a wobbly handle, pouring jarred sauce into a bowl and sticking it in the microwave, dumping some pre-made chicken slices on top and calling it dinner. It’s lame as shit—Nolan’s not great at cooking—but he, whatever. Likes the way TK’s visibly pleased by it, rubbing his face against Nolan’s shoulder like some kind of oversized, overly affectionate cat.

They take their plates out on the deck, eat at a splintery table and slap at occasional mosquitos and look out over the water. TK keeps up a running commentary on fish he’s caught, fish he’s failed to catch, some kind of lowkey drama with the neighbors that seems to center on him playing his terrible country music too loudly and not mowing the yard frequently enough.

“You know you can like, pay someone to mow your yard, dude.”

“It’s not that big,” TK says, rolling his eyes. “I’m not too good to push a mower.”

Nolan snorts down at his plate of pasta. He overcooked the noodles a little. They’re kind of mushy, insubstantial between his teeth, which only increases the summer-camp feeling—Nolan only went to a “normal” summer camp one year, when he was eleven or twelve, maybe, and had broken his collarbone playing hockey. It had been fun or whatever, canoeing and hiking and hanging out with some friends from his neighborhood that he didn’t see much anymore, but the whole time he’d been there he’d felt like he was in the wrong place: kept waiting to pull his pads back on, pick up a stick, and step out onto the ice. He’d missed hockey like a phantom limb, and he’d gotten home and sworn to his dad that he was never taking that much time off, ever again.

_I hope you’re right, buddy_, his dad had said.

He hadn’t been, obviously. He’d been wrong a hell of a lot earlier than this year. But: _this fucking year_, when it seemed like every single thing in his entire life fell apart at once.

“What are you thinking about?” TK asks him. “You’re quiet.”

“Tired,” he says. “Long flight. Came my brains out.”

TK preens, on the far side of the table. He’s got his elbows on the tabletop like a fucking savage, and a smear of tomato sauce crusting into whatever the fuck facial hair he’s failing to grow, and Nolan knows he likes to be told he’s good.

He kicks Nolan’s ankle under the table with one bare foot. “You know you can talk to me, right?”

“Of course I know I can fucking talk to you.”

“But you—don’t,” TK says. “Or you haven’t been. Not since we left Philly.”

There’s an ice bucket feeling in the pit of his stomach. He’s been trying. He’s no good at this; he’s no good at sticking to things he’s not good at. Fuck: he’s been _trying_. “We’ve talked every day.”

“Yeah,” TK says, then, “shit, Pats. Not like that.” He runs his foot up and down Nolan’s calf, hooks it around the bend in his knee as if Nolan wants his stupid toes touching his body, anyway. “I meant—like. I know it’s kind of a big summer, with your contract and stuff, and that you said you were maybe gonna talk to your family about—things. And I want you to know that—damn.” He shakes his head, flipping his hair out of his face. “I’m here, dude. Okay?”

“I don’t want to think about that shit,” he says. He doesn’t: he’d told his agent the one thing he cared about—staying in Philly as long as they would possibly let him—and his agent had said, _Nolan, I think a bridge deal is really going to be a more realistic option. Two years, maybe three_, and Nolan had told him: _I don’t care about the money. Get it done_, and stopped answering any of his phone calls.

He knows, okay. He knows he’s not getting a long-term deal like TK or Provy did, last summer. But the stuff with his head—it’s under control now. He played. He wants to stay. He looks at TK across the table from him, rolling out one shoulder, then the other, chewing on his lower lip and looking back at Nolan with a crooked little smile, a halfway hoping little thing—and he just. Can’t be anywhere else.

“Are you done eating,” he says.

“No, I’ve still got like half of my pasta left,” TK says, because he’s dumb as shit, and he’s looking at Nolan like _Nolan’s_ dumb as shit, like Nolan can’t see the pile of food still on his plate.

“It’s not even good,” Nolan says, and while TK is looking offended on his behalf and protesting loudly that _it’s fine, bud!_ he says, “Come to bed.”

TK clicks his mouth shut. They stick the plates in the fridge, with the beer and the smoothie ingredients and a casserole TK’s mom must have made; and they go to bed.

The fan in TK’s bedroom clicks, too, this monotonous _tick-tick-tick_ that would be driving Nolan absolutely out of his mind if he wasn’t so relaxed. He’s lying on his back and TK’s on his side, head propped up on one arm, absent-mindedly playing with his hair.

“This is new,” he says, putting one finger on Nolan’s newest tattoo. It’s on his ribs, right on top of the bone. _I don’t care if it hurts_, Nolan had told the artist. “What the fuck does it mean?”

Of course he doesn’t know. “It’s a date.”

“It’s like, letters.”

“You’re so fucking dumb,” Nolan tells him.

“Ohhh,” TK says. “Like that Roman number shit. Like for the Super Bowl.”

“Yeah, Travis. Like for the fucking Super Bowl.”

“The Is are like, ones, right? And the Xes are tens? So it’s—shit. Three, twenty, then there’s another I, and what the fuck does the V mean—is that six?”

“March 24, 2020,” Nolan says. “You dumbass.” He drags an arm across his eyes. He can still feel TK’s fingers on his skin, tracing the sharp angles and lines of the ink: he’s a little sweaty, again, and he will probably continue to be sweaty until he gets on a plane to go back to Winnipeg, whenever he bothers to buy a return flight, because the cabin is hot and his weather app is showing nothing but sunshine and high 20s.

TK’s quiet for a second, then Nolan feels him shifting, leaning down to press his mouth against the tattoo. “I knew you’d do it,” he says, lips moving against Nolan’s skin. Nolan doesn’t know what he believed Nolan would do, exactly: beat the fucking migraines, or play for the Flyers, or have a three-point night his first game back. “I never stopped believing that,” he says, moving in closer until he’s covering Nolan with his entire body. It’s too fucking hot but Nolan doesn’t make him move.

In the morning, they go fishing. It’s still hot as shit, the air heavy with overnight humidity that the sun hasn’t burned off yet—but there’s a breeze out on the water, at least once they get moving. TK’s blinking sleepily from behind the wheel of the boat—it’s a fucking nice boat, Nolan will give him that—alternating between sipping from his giant mug of iced coffee and squinting at the sonar reader. Nolan’s busy sprawling out in the back, eyes half-shut, letting the wind pull at his snapback and the sunlight penetrate into his skin. He feels—fuck it, he feels _relaxed_, listening to the thrum of the engine, feeling like every inch of his body is well-used from the two rounds they went yesterday and the half-awake one this morning, just open mouths and skin on skin in the dimly-lit space before TK’s alarm went off.

He doesn’t think they’ve ever had this much time to have sex before. There’s always been—something, Kevin or Sanny about to get home, practice, a plane to catch, team dinner, the ghost of Karly’s perfume taking up space in the corners until it was all Nolan could think about.

There’s none of that here. Just the muscles of TK’s back moving under his Port Stanley Terminal Rail t-shirt, the glint of his gold chain on the back of his neck. TK half-heartedly chirping him for his _douchebag hipster sunglasses_ and pretending he isn’t into how short Nolan’s shorts are.

He takes them out for about half an hour before cutting the engine. The water’s deeper here, an iron kind of gray-green. They bait their hooks and blame each other for why nothing’s biting, stay out there for hours until Nolan’s shoulders are starting to burn around the lines of his tank top and his stomach’s growling—neither of them thought to bring food, just water and beer, and TK’s bitching that his trainer’s going to kill him for forgetting to eat and Nolan’s kicking him in the ankle and saying it’s TK’s fault if neither of them make any gains this summer, even though he didn’t think about it, either. No, he was, whatever, preoccupied: licking the ridges along TK’s hips, following the v of muscle down to his dick with his tongue, tasting sweat and some stray splashes of lube since neither of them had bothered to shower again, just fucked and then fallen asleep mid-sentence all smashed together in TK’s too-small bed.

They don’t go straight back, though. TK heads the boat towards a cove with a few other boats, a little beach, a tire swing, music floating out over the water and girls in bikinis.

“Shit,” he mutters. “I was hoping nobody else would be here.”

“It’s fine, dude.” Maybe some of the other boats have food.

“I wanted to suck your dick, though,” he says, all annoyed. Nolan kicks him in the back of the calf and kisses his shoulder, smelling sweat and sunscreen; nips his stupid gold chain. TK leans back against his body and Nolan doesn’t have to see his face to know exactly what expression he’s making: his uneven mouth stuck somewhere between a smirk and a smile, eyes all squinty behind his sunglasses.

TK knows people in the cove—of course he does—and they get folded into the party. Nolan dives off the side of the boat and ends up in somebody’s diamond-ring pool floatie, drinking a White Claw that goes straight to his head. TK finds this stupidly funny, calls him a princess like he likes to do when he’s being extra annoying; Nolan says if he’s royalty TK can go find him some fucking food, then, and TK sighs and drops the anchor and disappears for a bit, paddles back from somebody else’s boat with a bag of chips in his teeth and a sandwich held out of the water. Nolan has no less than three girls hanging off his diamond ring by then, laughing at everything he says even though none of it’s funny, and asking dumb questions about what his tattoos mean.

They’re in Canada and two NHL players are better than one NHL player, so the girls (and boys) continue to multiply after TK gets back. Nolan hangs with it, eating his sandwich and letting the conversation wash over him and slapping TK’s fingers away from the bag of chips, until abruptly he’s done.

“Want to get out of here?” he asks, right in the middle of some dude telling TK how he _just barely_ didn’t get drafted into the O. TK’s got his media-training face on, and this is their vacation, and Nolan does not particularly care to spend it watching TK be polite to people about their junior hockey failures.

“Did you meet my dude over here?” TK asks, as if they aren’t all hanging off the sides of _Nolan’s_ (or, well, whoever the fuck’s) diamond ring pool floatie.

“No,” he says, leaving unspoken _and I don’t want to_ because he does have manners, no matter what the fuck Maddie says. But then he ends up meeting the dude, and making up answers to five more questions about his tattoos, and drinking like three more White Claws to cope with it. He’s pretty much fuming by the time TK finally catches on and begins the twenty-minute process of extricating himself from the party, promising to say hey to Chase from one guy, to tell his mom something else from some other girl. Nolan’s not really listening at that point—he’s swimming back to the boat, hauling himself up the ladder and dropping down onto the bow. He can feel himself burning and doesn’t care.

“You’re so fucking mean, dude,” TK calls from behind the wheel, when they’ve been moving for a few minutes.

“You’re too fucking nice, dude,” Nolan parrots back. His eyes are closed; the wind’s started to kick up some waves, and when the boat cuts through one sprays of lake water hit his face. “I know you didn’t want to talk to that guy.”

“Yeah, but you can’t like—say it like that.”

“You gonna stop me,” he asks.

“It’s like, a community,” TK says, because apparently this is going to be one of the things he gets feelings about. “I can’t just go around being shitty to people.”

“Heaven fucking forbid,” Nolan says, “that you act _shitty_ to people.” There’s a lot in there that he’s not saying: but he thinks TK hears it, because he’s quiet the rest of the ride back to the house. That’s something a lot of people don’t know about TK, if they only see the guy going feral on the ice, making nice to the media: but he’s not always loud. He’s never not intense, not really, but sometimes he gets quiet, pulls back in on himself, and Nolan can see why he always claims to be shy.

They get the boat docked, only communicating about ropes and lines and knots and spacing. Nolan’s feeling—stubborn, he guesses, just drunk enough to dig his heels in, drunk enough to be thinking about all the ways TK avoided being shitty to other people by being shitty to Nolan instead.

And to himself, maybe, and that’s the thought that makes him deflate. Last summer TK hurt Nolan when he’d said: _hey man I’m thinking about moving maybe, getting a place in NJ w Sanny closer to the zone, what do u think_. The only thing Nolan was thinking about at that point was putting together more than two days without curling up under his bedsheets, blackout curtains pulled over his windows, a trash can by his bed to puke into.

He’d barely been keeping himself alive. Dealing with TK and their—whatever they were doing, then, had been too much. Too hard, on top of everything else. So Nolan never answered, and that had hurt TK right back. Nolan knows, now, because they talked about it, pressed up against each other on Kevin’s couch and watching the glitter of the city lights outside his window. Or Nolan had been watching the lights; TK had been curled into his body, face pushed into the side of his neck and arms wrapped so tightly around his ribs that Nolan felt the pressure every time he filled his lungs.

TK had wanted him to say, _stay_. TK had wanted Nolan to give him something to hang on to; and Nolan hadn’t done it because he’d barely been hanging onto _himself_ at that point, couldn’t even have imagined throwing a rope to someone else, not someone with a girlfriend (who Nolan hadn’t even _disliked_, for fuck’s sake), not someone who was thinking about leaving him anyway; and TK had moved to the suburbs to play house with Sanny and Alex and Karly, when she was there, and ripped himself apart in the process.

Nolan can’t imagine—talking, the way TK talks. Just—saying things, exposing the soft, vulnerable places of his underbelly.

_True things, Patty. Or—or what’s the fucking _point_ of any of this, if we can’t even be _friends_._

Nolan catches his wrist, halfway up the lawn to the back deck. “Hey.” He pulls TK in to face him. He’s ducking his head under the brim of his snapback, and Nolan nudges it up with one finger so it’s tilted back on his head. “I just—I didn’t come here to play nice with a bunch of people I’m never gonna see again.” He wants to say, _I came here to be with you_, but doesn’t know how, or he’s too afraid; and thinking that makes him square up his shoulders and take ahold of TK’s jaw in one hand. He feels skin, tacky with sweat and sunscreen and bug spray; stubble; the hard lines of bone. TK’s blinking up at him with his eyes half-squinted, his uneven eyebrows, dark hair curling messily in front of his ears.

Maybe it’s just the White Claw talking but Nolan doesn’t want to be afraid of this, anymore. “I came here to be with you,” he says. “I lied that the flight on Sunday was cheaper. I don’t have a fucking ticket back to Winnipeg. I want to meet your stupid family, like for real, as your like—whatever you want me to be. Okay.”

TK grins, sudden and bright. “Yeah?” He rocks forward into Nolan’s body and kisses him, out there in the open for the neighbors and the boat traffic on the lake to see. “We gotta work on your manners, though,” he says. “This is Ontario, not fucking Manitoba. We are in civilized Canada, buddy. Not on a fucking prairie.”

Nolan pinches his hip. “I can go home any fucking time, bro.”

“Not until Friday, eh. That’s the next flight.”

“I can connect,” Nolan says. “I can do like, five connections if that’s what it takes to get away from you,” but he knows he’s smiling, can feel it on his face.

TK smiles back. He’s hot everywhere they’re pressed together. “Hey, do you want to fuck me?”

“What the fuck,” Nolan says. He’s still holding onto TK’s face so he gives it a little shake. “I thought you were mad at me.”

“You piece of shit,” TK tells him. “You gotta know by now that I suck at staying mad at you, bud.”

So they go inside and Nolan fucks him. They don’t do it this way that often and Nolan’s got to wonder why, with TK’s body so fucking tight all around him, TK scratching up his shoulders and making all kinds of noise when Nolan bites his throat, not quite hard enough to leave a mark but hard enough for TK to think about how it might. It’s intense—it’s always intense; and TK feels a little shaky afterward, keeping his legs tight around Nolan’s hips, his arms wrapped around his neck. They kiss, loose and aimless, trading spit and tongue back and forth as the fan whirls away over their heads. Nolan can feel the air moving against his back. It’s not enough to balance out the sweat slicking up his skin from all the places they’re touching; the sheets weren’t like, _clean_ before, and now they’re going to be straight-up filthy from sweat and come and lube.

Nolan’s thinking about the feeling of clean sheets on his skin, TK’s tan against white linen, and wondering if the cabin even has a washing machine, and also, kissing TK, possibly forever—like.

Shit.

Like, this is probably _forever shit_, isn’t it, a day on the lake, a dumb fight, makeup sex, then getting up and doing a load of laundry and eating dinner and falling asleep with their hands touching in the middle of the bed, because it’s too hot to do anything else but you still need to know that the other person is there.

“What,” TK mumbles into his mouth.

“Just, you,” he says, sweeping his thumb along TK’s forehead, tucking his stupid hair back behind one ear, straightening his gold chain where it’s gotten all twisted up against the side of his neck. He kisses him again, because he can, because he wants to, because in this moment, it is the truest thing he can do.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/canarynary) if you like yelling about the Flyers.


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